Acts 15:27-39

²⁷We (exc) have also chosen Judas and Silas to go to you. They will tell you the same things that we are writing.

²⁸The Holy Spirit and also we decided that you should not be required {that we should not require you} to obey a lot of burdensome Jewish laws. Instead, we only require you to obey the following instructions,

²⁹You should not eat food that people have sacrificed to idols. You should not eat blood from animals, and you should not eat meat from animals that people have killed by strangling them. Also, you should not have sex with someone to whom you are not married. Those things especially offend Jewish believers. So if you avoid doing them, you will be doing what is right. That is all.”

³⁰The four men whom they had chosen went from Jerusalem to Antioch city. When all the believers there had assembled together, Judas and Silas gave the letter to them.

³¹When the believers there read the letter, they rejoiced, because its message encouraged them.

³²Just like Paul and Barnabas were ◄ prophets/men who spoke messages from God►, Judas and Silas were also prophets. They spoke for a long time and encouraged the believers there, and helped them to trust more strongly in the Lord Jesus.

³³After Judas and Silas had stayed in Antioch for some time and were ready to return to Jerusalem , the believers there wished them well, and the believers prayed that God would protect them as they traveled. So the two men started to go back to the leaders in Jerusalem who had asked them to go to Antioch .

³⁵However, Paul and Barnabas continued to stay in Antioch. While they were there, they, along with many others, were teaching people and preaching to them the message about the Lord Jesus.

³⁶After some time Paul said to Barnabas, “Let's go back and visit the fellow believers in every city where we previously proclaimed the message about the Lord Jesus. In that way, we will know how well they are continuing to believe in the Lord Jesus.”

³⁷Barnabas agreed with Paul, and said that he wanted to take John, whose other name was Mark, along with them again.

³⁸However, Paul told Barnabas that he thought that it would not be good to take Mark with them, because Mark had deserted them when they were previously in Pamphylia region, and had not continued to work with them.

³⁹Paul and Barnabas strongly disagreed with each other about that, so they separated. Barnabas took Mark along with him and they got on a ship and went to Cyprus.